The Professional Attribute Of Teaching And Bearing On Effectiveness Of Instruction Of History

      Teaching is popularly known as a noble profession. It is a profession with manifold facets which includes purposes, standing, techniques and so on. Therefore, the teaching of History is in complete consonance with the above statement. For the teaching of History to be lively and interesting, the history teacher must have at his figure-tips the skill and understanding of his subjects and the class he teaches. The teacher cannot deliver his "goods" effectively and efficiently without the aforementioned. In other words, teachers will perform below expectation if they do not have good skills and understanding of the subjects and the class.


The above explanation points an index finger to the professional attributes of the teacher without which history teaching will be boring and downright monotonous. The professional attributes of the teacher are like a dress which must be worn by man or order not to be nude. Historical nudity is like a canker worm which must be avoided by teachers by all means and at all cost.


One of the professional attributes of the history teacher is qualification and competency. The question that readily comes to mind, is handle the subject? Quack and half "goods" appropriately and so on, history lessons will always look like hell on earth. Qualification and competence enhances the performance of the teacher and understanding of students who are the recipients in teaching-learning situation. They are the integral parts in teaching-learning process.


Apart from qualification and competence, the teacher should be well grounded in the subjects. This is what is referred to as sound knowledge of the coverage of the subject not only the content of the subject not only the content of the subject to be taught in a particular period. Negation of this means leading students astray and posterity will never pardon such a reckless and wayward teacher. This is because his efforts though genuine, fall short of expectation of the realization of societal goals which find expression in history.


Another important and crucial professional attribute of the teacher is knowledge in learner's psychology. This will equip the teacher to take adequate care of students learning need in accordance with the physical and mental development progress of the students he teaches. If the teacher is not grounded in child's psychology, the teaching of his subject will end up a fiasco.


Teacher should have proper and sound perception of the subjects is not enough and so, proper perception is the key. The two are intertwined and therefore inseparable. Poor perception of the subjects always leads to side tracking which is injurious to the objectives of teaching history as contained in the national curriculum. This makes students to venture into the ever changing world clinging or holding fast to wrong teachings passed across by the history teacher who wrongly and poorly perceives the subject. It may misleads students into application of factual history to real life situation a very costly and unpardonable flaw in history. Furthermore, since history as subject is a communication language, the teacher must have a very good command of language. The must be sound in language whose components includes reading, writing and speaking. His (choice of words) should be such that students are not led astray. Some teachers use high-sounding words to build defense for their ignorance, ineptitude and unpreparedness. To avoid pushing the blame of failure to English Language teachers, History teachers should as so act as English Language. You cannot understand History without the knowledge of English Language. In other words, History is understood in the light or contexts of language.


Other professional attribute include knowledge of effective utilization of instructional materials in accordance with the age of the learner and so on.


Therefore, the history teacher, as crook-all rightly puts, “in an Educator and should not give up in his efforts in improving his professional standard.” He further stresses that standard and quality of teaching History should be his (teacher's) major concern.


To roundup therefore, for a teacher to be effective and good, he should be professionally qualified, have sound knowledge of his subject, proper perception of the subject, he should be well grounded in Language and Child's Psychology among others. Since the teacher is the powerful person in the classroom, he should always be “watchful.” Being watchful is to be on guard and being on guard means the teacher most arm himself with the necessary weapons.